DENVER—Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper gave a personal apology to a man who was wrongly jailed after signing a bill into law Wednesday to compensate the wrongly imprisoned.

The new law would allow exonerated former prisoners or their survivors up to $70,000 for every year wrongly spent behind bars for a felony conviction. The person would have to be proved innocent, not cleared on legal technicalities or appeals.

Hickenlooper signed the bill in front of Robert Dewey of western Colorado. Dewey was cleared by DNA evidence after spending more than 17 years behind bars for someone else’s crime. After signing the new law, Hickenlooper shook Dewey’s hand and apologized for Dewey’s ordeal.

Last month, Denver’s Department of Safety fired a deputy sheriff for using racial slurs and harassing inmates and a police sergeant for drinking while in uniform and abandoning a post to have sex with a woman.

A wedding and special events’ planning business has agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to five employees living in the country illegally after allegedly failing to pay them minimum wages and overtime and discriminating against them because of their race.